Steven Loucks - Cybersecurity Portfolio

layout: post title: “This Portfolio Wasn’t Cloned — I Built It” date: 2025-05-19 categories: [blog, build log] tags: [GitHub Pages, Jekyll, portfolio, rebuild, student life, real talk] —

I’ve seen the advice everywhere:

“If you want to break into cybersecurity, you need a portfolio.”
“Just use GitHub — they have templates.”
“Clone one, drop in your headshot — arms crossed, slightly off-center — and add bold text: ‘Hi, I’m John Doe. I’m a SOC Analyst.’ Done.”

And to be fair — they look good.
Beautiful in their uniformity.
Predictable. Clean. Efficient.
You can practically guess what’s coming next on every one of them:

• A greeting
• Some certifications
• Projects
• Contact button
• Maybe a “blog” with one post that says “Coming soon…”

But I Didn’t Want Cloned Success

I didn’t want to pretend I was finished.
I didn’t want to fake polish I hadn’t earned.

I didn’t want a copy of someone else’s success — I wanted to build my own.

This site isn’t prepackaged.
It’s me — in all my glorious, messy, and convolutedness —
showing what I can do,
what I will do,
and what I’m already doing.

From the early chaos of scratched-together pages,
to the current broken pieces duct-taped together,
to the future — the fully edited, beautifully styled, painfully polished masterpiece waiting to shine.

Maybe someday ready for internet fandom.
Or at least, ready for the next hiring manager to say:

“Okay, this guy builds.”

The Build Journey

This site has version history with names like:

• v1-triangle-stuff-finalish
• stable-v2-working-maybe
• v4-fix-cert-icons-for-real
• v8-live-done-but-not-done

It’s gone from raw to wrecked to reorganized more times than I can count.

But that was the point.

Every bug I fixed taught me something.
Every page I broke forced me to learn.
Every late-night commit pushed the whole thing forward.

What It Is (and What It Isn’t)

This portfolio is:

• My central hub
• My lab gateway
• My career-in-progress, on display

It’s not perfect.
But it’s mine.

No fake banner.
No template headline.
No illusion of being “already there.”

Just real effort. Real learning. Real work.

What’s Next

The build continues.

• More labs are coming
• Forage internships are planned
• A “Skills in Use” section will highlight what I’ve done — not just what I’ve studied
• The blog will fill with reflections, walkthroughs, and troubleshooting from the trenches

This is a portfolio that lives, grows, and mutates — sometimes overnight.

And maybe someday it’ll be flawless.
But even if it isn’t…

It was never meant to be cloned.
It was built.

Written by Steven Loucks –
Cybersecurity student. Navy veteran.
Not a template. Not a clone. Just real.